


Earth's the Right Place for Love

by fluffywingsandhalos



Series: So, how does this work exactly? [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x19 coda, 15x20 doesn't exist, Cooking, Dean Winchester in Denial, Episode Fix-It: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Fluff, Jack is God, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), POV Dean, Past violence mentioned, Poetry, Protective Dean Winchester, Romantic Fluff, kind of, married, proposal, set around 2 years later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffywingsandhalos/pseuds/fluffywingsandhalos
Summary: “All right.” He turns around again but stops, contemplates, brings his hand to his face, turns back, leans down to Castiel, kisses him on the cheek – chaste but sweet – breathes a goodbye, turns back again and leaves. Castiel only watches him walk up the steps and close the door behind him, too surprised to do anything else. He frowns.“Well, that was … weird”, Sam speaks his mind.***When Cas speaks like this every word is important, every sound matters. He speaks like he feels, and he feels all of it. The whole thing. And yeah, Dean might not understand much, but he understands this. He understands that it matters.There is no hell in that voice, no monsters, just recognition. There is ayes, I feel like that tooand ado you?And Dean thinksyeah, how about that.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel & Eileen Leahy, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: So, how does this work exactly? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168202
Comments: 16
Kudos: 125





	Earth's the Right Place for Love

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta’d.  
> I’m also not an English native speaker, so there are probably some mistakes. If you find something you want corrected, please let me know!
> 
> First time posting anything. Please do leave comments (and kudos if you feel like it), I want to learn! 
> 
> Title taken from Robert Frost’s poem “Birches” (also cited in the text, as well as “The Road Not Taken”)

Castiel studies the pages in front of him, looking for some kind of clue. But the book is useless, just like all the other books stacked up on the table between Sam and himself. He notices a weird tingling sensation creeping up his left leg. Sam had told him that means it’s falling asleep and that he needs to move. He doesn’t even remember how long he has been sitting in this chair without so much as stretching his legs. Castiel still isn’t used to this kind of feeling. Of course he has felt his body before when he was still an angel. He has felt pain, and touch, and pressure. But he has never felt anything like this before; his body has never responded so strongly to anything. Except pain, maybe. Castiel remembers studying books and reading lore whole nights without so much as growing tired or feeling the need to stretch his limbs. Now, his eyes are getting heavy from looking at the page for too long, he feels a grumbling in his stomach, his back aches, and the tingling in his legs turns into a stinging sensation. He is about to tell Sam as much when he hears Dean walk into the library. He is wearing his jacket and boots. He looks uneasy.

“Hey”, he mumbles, nodding at them. “So, uh”, he takes a quick look over his shoulder as if wanting to escape the situation before he continues. “I’m gonna go out for a while. Grab some stuff on my way. You need anything?” He was gesturing with his hand before stuffing them in his pockets. A sign of nervousness, Castiel notes. He has seen people do it before.

Sam shakes his head. He also looks curious. It isn’t just Castiel, then.

“No, thank you”, Castiel replies and Dean already turns to leave, nodding, when Castiel squints. “Where are you going?”

Dean turns around, eyebrows raised, biting his lip. “Just --”, he touches his hairline, thinks about an answer. “Out. Y’know. Stuff”, he stammers. “Takin’ Baby for a drive.”

Castiel frowns even harder. One doesn’t have to be a human for long to understand Dean is hiding something. A quick look at Sam, who is frowning at Dean as well, backs up his intuition.

“Do you … want company?”, Castiel asks carefully.

“No”, Dean is too quick to answer, making a face of dismissal. “You guys have fun doing … “, he gestures at the piles of books. “Whatever it is you’re doing.”

“It’s called research, Dean”, Sam chimes in, mockingly, eyebrows raised and pulled together in that typical face he has only ever seen Sam make. “You should try that too sometime.”

“Yeah whatever, nerd”, Dean mumbles and Sam only huffs at him. Dean touches the table very gently with his fingertips. A gesture Castiel has last seen him make before he asked him to leave the bunker. The last time he was human.

“All right.” He turns around again but stops, contemplates, brings his hand to his face, turns back, leans down to Castiel, kisses him on the cheek – chaste but sweet – breathes a goodbye, turns back again and leaves. Castiel only watches him walk up the steps and close the door behind him, too surprised to do anything else. He frowns.

He notices Sam staring at him and can imagine his wide eyes and raised eyebrows, but he doesn’t look away from the door where Dean has just vanished a few seconds ago.

“Well, that was … weird”, Sam speaks his mind.

“Yes”

“Do you … know what it was about?”

“No”

They usually didn’t kiss in front of Sam or the others. Castiel had Dean take the lead, he knew better what was appropriate and what wasn’t. Dean has been cautious to initiate physical affection when other people are around. He guessed that Dean was uncomfortable since Castiel was a man, as well as his best friend, as well as a former angel. Castiel doesn’t mind either way, he is just grateful for everything they do share. But now, a kiss – even if it was just on the cheek – plus Dean’s obvious nervousness, it was … odd, to say the least.

He still feels Dean’s lips brush over his cheek when he returns his gaze to the book. If one could call something made from human skin a book, that is.

***

When Castiel takes a sip from his coffee it is already cold and stale. He grunts and pulls a face. Castiel has come to love coffee during his time as a human. He probably drinks way too much of it if Sam’s eyebrows and comments are to be believed but he can’t help it. Castiel also found out that he isn’t much of a morning person, and if he happened to drink coffee around the clock now instead of just in the mornings, well, “sue him”, as Dean would say. Dean probably doesn’t help, offering and bringing him coffee at least five times a day.

It is just Castiel in the bunker now, Sam having left an hour before to meet up with Eileen, and Dean still not being back. Castiel stands up, groans quietly when his back pops, takes his mug in one hand, the book in the other so as not to waste time, and goes to the kitchen. When he wants to fill up his next dose of caffeine, he finds the pot empty. Did he not just fill it up?

While the next pot slowly brews, Castiel retreats with his book to the kitchen island, intend on finishing the chapter within the next half hour.

When he was still an angel, Castiel could sense everything that was going on around him. Even while concentrating on a task, he still heard and understood every noise around him, sensed every soul near him. That was why it was practically impossible to startle him. And that is probably why it is so easy to startle him now. Castiel simply doesn’t think about his surroundings because he is still used to just _sensing_ it, always, in every situation. He gets lost in reading, not even noticing that he doesn’t notice anything else anymore. Then, something would suddenly snap him out of it. Dean waving his hand in front of his face, repeating his question with an amused smile, or Eileen tapping his shoulder to get his attention.

Or an envelope and a box whacked on the book in front of him where he was just deciphering a spell.

Dean doesn’t even stop to explain or even say so much as hello, he just strides over to the fridge where he loads off his groceries. His boots squeak on the tiles and his hair is wet and a bit ruffled. It must be raining outside.

Castiel has his back toward the entrance where Dean came from, but Dean isn’t exactly quiet. How did he not hear him come in? Yes, he had been absorbed in the spell, but still. Sooner rather than later this is going to get him into trouble. He should be aware of his surroundings.

Castiel frowns at what Dean threw in front of him then frowns at Dean. He is still showing no intention of explaining, his back towards Castiel, moving the groceries out of the bag and into the cabinets. Castiel frowns back at the kitchen island again. The box is small and black. There are wet patches on the envelope where the raindrops hit it. Castiel reaches out to the envelope first. There are documents inside.

His hands still.

Across the kitchen he feels Dean quieting too.

For a moment they just stand in the kitchen silently, neither daring to say something.

“You just -- “, Dean carefully breaks the silence, his back still turned to Castiel. He clears his throat and tries again, “You just have to sign them. If you want. That is.”

Castiel doesn’t respond. He only looks at the document: at the title, at Dean’s signature. Then he reaches out to the little box. He feels he already knows what is in it, but he needs to make sure.

He is right.

When the box opens it reveals an embedded ring. It is plain and made of silver. He picks it up, carefully, as if not to break it. Of course the ring wouldn’t break, not that easy, but whatever it means could. There is an engraving on the inside.

“Dean …”

But before he could say anything else, Dean interrupts, “You can choose your own name or you just -- just take mine. Whatever. You don’t have to -- I mean, it was just an … just an idea. No big deal. I just thought, y’know, after all. And since -- ”

Now it is Castiel’s time to interrupt. “Dean”, he repeats, with more vehemence this time. Sure enough, it stops Dean’s babbling.

Castiel pushes the ring on his finger of his left hand. The silver shines in the light of the kitchen. It fits perfectly.

Dean still doesn’t look at him, but he has stopped moving the groceries that are still laid out before him. Castiel rounds the kitchen island to stand next to him. He is looking at his hands, probably doesn’t dare to look Castiel in the eye for fear of rejection.

“Dean”, Castiel says again, soft this time.

***

Cas takes Dean’s arm – he is still wearing his jacket, still wet – and slowly turns him around. Dean looks at his hand, the ring on his hand – _left hand_ , he notices. Whatever that means – before finally looking up and making eye contact. Cas’s eyes are blue and steady and _fuck, he should be used to this by now_. They lock with his and they assure him that this is okay, that he wants this, that Dean hasn’t made a terrible mistake, hasn’t destroyed it all, hasn’t gone and fucked it all up like he always does.

Cas lays his left hand – _whatever that means –_ on his chest, the silver ring oh so visible. They stand close now, very close, too close, not close enough. Cas breaks their eye contact to look down at Dean’s left hand – _whatever that means, whatever that means_ – that is gripping the kitchen counter. The same silver ring. Cas moves his hand on top of his and he feels the warmth of his skin on his own cold hands, cold from the rain. There is still an inch between them that Cas closes. Dean hasn’t moved this whole time, hasn’t said a word, didn’t dare to. Their foreheads touch and he closes his eyes. They don’t speak, just stand there, in the middle of the kitchen; Dean wet from the rain, Cas dry. Breathing each other in, feeling each other’s warmth. Cas’s left hand – _whateverthatmeanswhateverthatmeans_ – on Dean’s chest; Dean’s hand on his hip (how did that get there), holding each other steady.

Dean swallows.

“It’s no big deal”, he says without opening his eyes and he knows that’s not the whole truth, but he says it anyway.

He feels Cas nodding.

“We don’t -- we don’t have to tell Sam”, he continues. “Or -- y’know, or anyone.”

“Okay”, Cas breathes quietly.

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal”, he repeats, and is that really all he can say? He should explain, he should tell Cas why all of a sudden, why now, why in the first place. He should tell him how they said that _they couldn’t tell him anything,_ that _they wouldn’t let him see him,_ that _he wasn’t family._ He should tell him that it wrenched his gut when they said that because after all, after _everything_ , of course he was _family, he was always family_ , no matter what the nurses said after he carried him to the hospital three miles without a car, a hole ripped in his chest. He should explain how he had to call Sam before he could break something (or someone). _They say he’s not family, Sam. How can they – after everything, how can they say that?_ Sam said they didn’t know, of course, but it still wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right that they didn’t know. _How could they not know?_

So he had Charlie fake the papers. She looked at him somewhat funny, asked why they don’t just do it the regular way, the legal way. But he just looked at her and he guesses she understood that he just _couldn’t_ , because she didn’t pry after that.

They still breathe each other’s air. Cas smells of coffee and old books, of his shampoo and Dean’s clothes. It’s still a new smell but Dean is used to it by now. Before Cas always smelt of nothing, but now, since he’s human, he just smells like _Cas_. It’s not unusual for him to wear Dean’s clothes either, at least at home. Dean doesn’t know why he doesn’t wear his own clothes, since he has them now, but he doesn’t mind; he likes it, rather: seeing Cas in his old Led Zeppelin shirt, drinking coffee, squinting at the paper.

Cas’s hand moves up to his face, touches the scruff that’s been growing a bit too long lately and then cups his face, the cold metal on his cheek and _he can’t think about what that means, not really, whateveritmeanswhateverit –_ and then their lips touch, gently and every so sweet that Dean thinks he will burst, his heart will just explode, because this is too good, too gentle, he doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t _get this, ever_.

Except now he does.

He holds tight onto Cas’s hip because if he lets go, he thinks he will break, or fall, or both.

***

Castiel doesn’t know how long they have been kissing. It might have been for hours or mere minutes. He doesn’t really care, either. Because Dean’s kisses are sweet and gentle, and he wants to live in this moment forever. It is strange how this moment could feel like eternity, how this moment could be so much more important than the eternity he lived before this. Nothing of his life before he met Dean was ever so meaningful. He doesn’t even remember how he spent all that time. Fighting? Watching earth? Listening to the endless quarrels of his brothers and sisters?

It doesn’t really matter, anyway. Not right now. Right now, all that matters is Dean’s hand on his hip, steadying him, and his own touching Dean’s jaw. His stubble turned into a scruff lately. He thinks Dean is trying out a new style. Castiel likes it. It feels nice underneath his fingers and so does the wet hair that, if he thinks about it, has also grown a bit longer.

He can feel Dean’s heart racing. He wonders if his own does the same.

After a few minutes, hours, millennials, they break apart for air. They are still so close that their foreheads are barely touching.

Dean’s lips are slightly parted. “Maybe --“, he starts softly, swallows. ”Maybe it is a big deal.”

“Yes, maybe”, Castiel whispers back.

“I - I think. I think I wanna tell Sam”

“Yes. Okay”

“Right. Okay.” He licks his lips. Then again, as if to assure himself, “Right.”

He leans in for another gentle kiss, sweet, soft, then moves away far enough for them to look into each other’s eyes again. Dean lifts his hand to push a strand of Castiel’s hair aside (His own hair was growing longer, too. He wasn’t used to needing to cut it quite yet.) and then runs his thumb gently over his cheek before speaking up.

“So … you want lasagne for dinner?”

And yes, this is so typical for Dean, to change the topic to food when emotions are involved. Castiel thinks it might be his way to say how much he cares.

He nods. Of course he wants lasagne. All of Dean’s food is amazing.

“You wanna help?” Dean offers, while giving him a half-smirk and simultaneously biting his lip and raising his eyebrows. Castiel doesn’t know how he does it, putting so much expression in one face, but he loves it. It’s so very Dean.

“Yes”

Dean never lets him help in the kitchen. He tried a few times, but it had always ended in Dean being annoyed, taking the kitchen utensil from his hands and telling him to just wait until the food is ready. Apparently Castiel is not a very good chef.

But today, instead of exasperated sighs and headshakes, and “give me that”, and “don’t, please”, and “just go read a book or something”, he gets gentle smiles and Dean’s hand on his back, his shoulder, instructions mumbled close to his ear.

He doesn’t even comment on the funny look Sam gives them when he comes back and when Eileen enters the kitchen he doesn’t even seem to notice. But Castiel does and he immediately regrets looking at them when he realises they are talking – or rather signing – about them. He looks away as quickly as possible. He doesn’t want to know what they are saying, not today, not right now.

Instead, he does something rather stupid the next time Dean moves close to him to get something from a cabinet above him. It’s not so much of a decision than a reflex when he grabs Deans shirt (he got rid of the jacket while they were cooking) and pulls him in. Their lips clash and there is immediately tongue involved. It’s a deep kiss, nothing like what they have shared earlier. They don’t usually do this, not in front of people. For a brief moment Castiel thinks he has made a mistake and that maybe Dean isn’t ready for this yet. But Dean doesn’t pull away. If anything, he pulls him closer by the hip until they are flush together. Somehow Castiel’s hands land in his hair and he forgets that they are not alone and that Sam and Eileen are sitting at the table only a few feet away.

Dean doesn’t seem to mind though, so Castiel doesn’t either.

When they break apart, they are both breathing heavily.

Dean raises his eyebrows; he looks surprised but not unhappy. “What was that for?”, he mumbles.

“I – “ Now that the kiss is over Castiel feels embarrassed. He looks away. “I wanted to.”

Pause. Then, “All right.”

He gently tilts Castiel’s chin back up to give him another kiss.

Castiel forgets his surroundings again until Dean moves away to finish the lasagne.

***

He knows the language of food, it’s easy. Definitely easier than to say _I love you_ or _Please stay_ or _Marry me._ Because that’s what the ring means, that’s what it means when you wear a ring on your left hand, on that finger, that’s what it means.

_I love you._

_Please stay._

_Marry me._

No, lasagne is much easier. Dean doesn’t quite know how he got away with this without actually saying those words. It’s probably not healthy, he thinks. They will have to talk about this, sooner or later (sooner rather than later), but for now he got away with it. He’s been watching the silver band on Cas’s finger while they’re cooking. It looks good. _It is good_ , he tells himself. _Good things do happen,_ that’s what Cas said to him once.

Maybe sometimes, just maybe, they actually do.

Lord knows it’s time. _No, not Lord, Jack._ He wonders if the guy can see them now, if he approves, if he’s happy for them, and he comes to the conclusion that _yes, he is._ It’s Jack, after all. The guy is always happy when others are.

The lasagne is pretty much done now and all that’s left is to eat; to sit next to Cas and across Sam and Eileen and eat and _talk._ Because they need to talk. Because Dean and Cas are married. Because Cas signed the papers while they were cooking. Or at least Dean thinks he did since he couldn’t actually bring himself to look at it. He wonders which name Cas chose, wonders how he’d feel if Cas didn’t take his name – _noup, not going there right now_. Right now, he has a whole other spiral in his head going _married married married married …_

He never thought he’d have this, not with anyone, especially not with Cas. It’s too good, it’s too normal, it’s too _easy_ that he keeps thinking something must go wrong because something _always_ goes wrong. Maybe God allows for this one happy moment only to rip Cas away on their next hunt together. Only so he would have to watch him die again and all of this – this possibility of a whole life together – fall apart again. So he would have to carry him to a hospital again, only so they could tell him this time that _yes, he’s family_ but that _he’s gone, sorry, we can’t help you_.

He shouldn’t be thinking about that. Chuck’s gone. Jack’s there now, and Jack wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t wanna think about how Jack said he’ll be hands-off, though.

Instead, he should be thinking about how he’s gonna tell Sam. It’s not even the fact that he will have to say, _Sam, Cas and I are married. Yup, we’re gay,_ because newsflash, Sherlock. No, it’s because he will have to say, _Sam, Cas and I are married and I didn’t make you best man and you weren’t even invited and I didn’t even tell you._ Yep. Fun.

The alarm goes off, they put the lasagne on the table, they sit down, they eat.

Now to the talking part.

“We’re married.”

Best to just rip it off, right?

“I figured”

Well, that was easy.

“What? How?”

“The way you’ve been acting. This morning, now this …”, he gestures at the kitchen as if that explains everything, anything, pulling his eyebrows up in that Sam-frown. “Was kinda hard not to notice.” He pointedly looks at Dean’s hands.

“Right.” Dean’s turn to frown. “So you’re … not mad?”

“What, why would I be mad? I’m happy for you, Dean. If anyone deserves this, it’s you guys.”

“Right.” Really, where was his eloquence today? “So, you’re … good.”

Confused Sam-smile. “Yeah, obviously”

“You’re not mad I didn’t … tell you?” Because yeah, he just had to go and push, didn’t he?

“You told me now”

“Well, yeah, but –”

Sam interrupts, “Dean, I get it. You don’t have to justify yourself for wanting something good and being scared of losing it”

Right. “Right.”

Next to them Cas and Eileen chat. Yes. Actual chatting like fourteen-year-old girls. Dean isn’t fluid enough in ASL to understand everything, but he gets the picture. He looks away, down at his plate. “Right”, he mumbles again more to himself than anyone else. When he looks back up, he finds a smug grin on Sam’s face.

“Whatever, bitch”

“Jerk”

***

Castiel sits on the bed, balancing a book on his knees. He isn’t reading, though. He is looking at his ring, turning it between his fingers. He wonders about the concept of marriage. Wasn’t marriage created to bond husband and wife before God? And yet here they are: a man and a former angel who signed a contract (for lack of a better word) in a world where the original God, the one churches want to please, doesn’t exist anymore because he wanted to destroy the very own world he had created.

Before he could dive too deep into it, however, a hand snaps before his eyes.

“Earth to angel, you copy?”

Castiel looks up. Dean is half-leaning on the bed, an amused smile on his face. He is only wearing a t-shirt and Castiel realises that he must have been in the room for a while.

“I asked whatcher reading but I guess I should be asking what yer thinking about”

“Oh, I – nothing important.” That earns him an unconvinced, raised eyebrow.

He sighs and picks up the book. “It’s a collection of poems by Robert Frost”, he offers as answer to the first question.

“Wanna read me somethin’?” Dean asks with a crooked grin and sprawls himself across the bed until he is lying on his back, one hand behind his head, the other on his stomach.

It’s a genuine question. They did this sometimes. Castiel would read something, not always poetry but more often than not, and Dean would come in and ask him to read out loud. And Castiel would read while Dean goes to brush his teeth or lies down next to him and he would hum in agreement, or snort, or mutter comments like “what the fuck”, or “serves him right”, or “dickhead”, and sometimes he would even laugh aloud.

“I don’t have to read I know it by heart.”

“Of course you do”, Dean mutters under his breath but there is a genuine fondness in his voice.

Castiel puts down the book (he isn’t sure why he even picked it up in the first place since he knew the words) and lies down next to Dean. His chest only hurts a little bit while he is adjusting himself. The wound is basically healed.

He starts with “The Road Not Taken”.

***

He hears shuffling as Cas lies down next to him, not quite close enough to touch but close enough to feel the body-warmth.

After a moment Cas starts reciting in his low and rumbly voice. It really is the perfect voice for poetry, he thinks.

He’s heard the poem before, Cas is a sucker for that Frost-guy.

“… and I –, I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.”

Dean likes him too, he thinks, not that he knows much about poetry.

“Don’t stop”, he mumbles after the silence has stretched on for a bit.

So Cas continues. _Birches_. His favourite.

“… I’d like to get away from earth for a while and then come back to it and begin over …”

Dean huffs. No wonder it’s his favourite. It’s so close to Cas’s own experience. Makes you wonder who that Frost-guy really was.

“ … earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to get better … “

These times, when Cas reads to him, are one of the few times when Dean is actually able to just stop and listen. When Cas speaks like this every word is important, every sound matters. He speaks like he feels, and he feels all of it. The whole thing. And yeah, Dean might not understand much, but he understands this. He understands that it matters. Himself, Cas, two silver rings, the fucking crack in the wall: it all matters. That’s why loves listening to Cas like this.

“… that would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

There is no hell in that voice, no monsters, just recognition. There is a _yes, I feel like that too_ and a _do you?_ And Dean thinks _yeah, how about that._

Maybe the world isn’t so confusing after all if you can put into words, maybe that’s the secret. How unfortunate then that Dean sucks with the whole words-thing.

“Dean?”

“Mhh”

“What does it mean?”

Dean snorts, “Sorry buddy, you’re gonna have to ask Sam that.”

“No, I –“, Cas stops.

Dean turns his head. Cas looks at him, frowns. “Poetry means whatever you make it, Dean.”

Dean feels like he should respond to that, something like “yeah, right”, but Cas continues, “Everyone can understand poetry as long as one can feel it.”

And Dean thinks _huh, how about that_.

“What I meant was – “, Cas raises his hand and looks at it.

_His left hand,_ Dean realises and tries not to panic again. He doesn’t answer right away.

“It means we’re married”, and there, he said it again, _we’re married_. Maybe he isn’t so bad with words after all.

Cas squints. “Yes, but – what does that mean?”

“What do you want it to mean?”, he asks quietly, carefully.

The squint turns into a frown. “I don’t know”

Dean knows he should ask something, should make sure, so he does, carefully though, quietly, so he doesn’t spark anything that isn’t already there. He swallows. “Do you regret it?”

Cas’s head turns immediately, locking their eyes. “No”, he says vehemently.

“Okay”, Dean whispers, taken aback by the amount of confidence.

He waits for Cas to talk.

Cas sighs, letting his hands fall in a very dramatic gesture – and yeah Dean loves this, this human Cas – before starting again. “What does – what is marriage?”, he squints at the ceiling. “Does it solely exist for tax benefits? Or is it a ‘covenant in the presence of God’? How can it be before God if he – “

He stops but Dean understands. And he makes himself think about it, really think about it, which he’s been avoiding all day.

“It means your family, Cas”, he starts. “You were always family but now people see the ring and they – they know. They know we’re family. You and me. Now they know. Now they can’t … can’t just – “, _tell me otherwise and send me away while you’re dying in the next room._ He doesn’t have to finish the sentence because Cas understands him too and he’s glad for it.

Cas looks at him again and then moves closer until they are flush together, Dean’s hand around his shoulder, Cas’ wrapped around his chest.

“I didn’t”, Cas whispers. And yeah, he didn’t but he might have, _he might have._ Dean can’t answer, there’s a lump in his throat. He thinks of the scar that’s on Cas’ chest now, where the hole was, the scar that will stay there forever.

Dean thinks he’d rather think about the hair tingling his chin where Cas’ head is tucked away in his neck. Yeah, that’s a much better thought.

“So …”, Dean starts quietly after a while. He clears his throat, swallows. Careful, _careful._ “What name did you take?”

Cas doesn’t answer right away, and Dean thinks he might break in those few seconds, then, “What do you think?”

He swallows again. “Say it”, he breathes.

And yeah okay, he says it. And it does something to Dean, hearing it. And he thinks that maybe this isn’t so bad, that maybe he can get used to Cas using that name as his own, used to others using that name when they talk of Cas, because, after all, _after everything_ , Cas is family.

Dean closes his eyes and they just lie there for a while, together, hearing each other’s breath and feeling each other’s heartbeat. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been lying there, but Cas breath has fallen slow and heavy, when he hears a shuffle from outside the door. Someone’s standing outside, probably contemplating whether to disturb or not, probably Sam.

“Come in, Sammy”, he says. Cas is a heavy sleeper and Dean says it just quiet enough not to disturb him, just loud enough to carry through the door.

“I don’t wanna interrupt you guys, doing …”, more shuffling. Doing what? Oh right, yeah. They did just get married.

“Just come in”

The door swings open cautiously and Sam’s head appears and is he covering his eyes?

Dean snorts. “What is it, princess?”

“Please tell me you’re dressed”

Dean snorts but doesn’t answer, which makes Sam pull a disgusted face and go, “Oh god. Oh god, you’re gross, Dean”

And wow, okay, they’re not animals.

“Relax. Everything is G-rated, I promise”

There is a moment of hesitation where Sam contemplates whether he’s messing with him, but decides to take the risk. He’s obviously relieved when he finds them still dressed.

“Jody called, we uh – “, he starts. “We got a case. Vamps nest, not too far from here. Eileen and I are going, you guys wanna come?”

“How many vamps?”

“They’re thinking four. Could be more, though”

“You got back-up?”

“I can call Garth. I’m sure he’d be happy to help out”

He listens to Cas’ heavy breathing, feels his hair against his chin. “Yeah. Do that. I think we’re gonna sit this one out.”

Sam smiles. He probably expected as much. “All right. Good night, Dean”

“G’night. Be careful”

“Will do”

And with that the door closes and Dean hopes he’s made the right decision.

He realises what Sam must have seen. Both of them lying across the bed, Cas’ arm wrapped around his chest, his head resting on his shoulder. His left arm, the one with the silver band on his finger, spread out on Dean’s chest. He doesn’t freak out about it this time. It’s calm. It’s nice.

“Cas?”

Grunting.

“I think I’m happy”

Cas’ grip around him tightens.

And he lets himself breathe, and he lets himself be in this moment, and he lets himself have something good for once, for now.

_Yeah,_ he thinks. _Earth is a pretty good place for love. One could do worse._

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
